Amanda Seyfried says she has stopped taking roles that require sex scenes, and she recently turned down a television series because the part demanded them constantly. The 40-year-old made the comments at the Hamptons International Film Festival, in a conversation with Alec Baldwin. She said she “passed on” a show built around frequent sex scenes, and that her co-star would not have changed her answer. “I’m not into it right now,” she said. She did not name the project.
Seyfried framed the choice as a matter of comfort. She said she does not want to deal with “being naked with a stranger.” Acting grows stranger with age, she added, because actors must play romantic with people they are not romantic with, and the result is sometimes great and sometimes awkward. Early in her career, she said, such scenes felt effortless and even fun.
Her résumé shows how far she has shifted. She has done revealing work in “Chloe” in 2009, “Lovelace” in 2013 and “The Testament of Ann Lee” last year. Her credits also include “Jennifer’s Body.” Motherhood has changed her calculus. “I have kids now who are paying attention to what I do,” she told Baldwin, saying that left her less willing to go along with demands. She now declines fan photo requests when she is with her children, and she recalled her daughter Nina telling her she was proud of her for saying no.
Seyfried has described a harder start. She told Porter magazine she wishes intimacy coordinators had existed on sets when she was a teenager, and that at 19 she stayed quiet about her discomfort because she wanted to keep her job. She says she now sets firmer boundaries on screen and off. She left the door open to returning to onscreen intimacy. A different project at a different point in her life, she said, might change her mind.
